End Of A Year - You Are Beneath Me
Rating
RIYL
Algernon CadwalladerTubers
At The Drive-In
mewithoutYou
Release Date
07/06/2010
Label
Deathwish Inc.Tracklist
1. Composite Character2. Charles Ewert
3. Marissa Wendolovske
4. Fred Dekker
5. Louis Slotin
6. Eric Hall
7. Sara Hayden
8. Jeni Leigh
9. Bo Diaz
10. Eddie Antar
11. Philip Jose Farmer
Users Rating |
Your RatingCreate an account or log in to rate this album |
Recent Ratings |
|
|
|
Rangy. Essentially what this is is a post-hardcore and post-punk amalgam that dispenses with the ideas of song structures as binding and spreads out to give the songs room to explore and breathe, but pulls in enough to avoid the expansive lengthiness of post-rock. You Are Beneath Me is a perfect example of a band radiating their sound outward from an idea and letting the instrumentals roam in a myriad of directions, but not completely untethered. The best way to explain the contents of You Are Beneath Me is to think of mewithoutYou’s “Paper Hanger;” End of a Year capably balance their desire to play with accepted norms while at the same time managing to stick with writing memorable songs like the first-rate “Jeni Leigh,” a song that is deceptive in its subtle catchiness, wiggling its way into the ear and camping itself firmly there.
One of the main reasons You Are Beneath Me is such an interesting listen is this push-and-pull philosophy between the more traditional aspects of post-punk and post-hardcore, and a true embodiment of what these “genres” are supposed to accomplish—to take an aesthetic and transform it in some fashion, to seek out new territory and explore its limits. For example, “Eddie Antar” finds End of a Year trying their hand at Fugazi, and the inclination of “Marissa Wendolovske” is to keep things driving, a la Hot Water Music, but this serves as a counterpoint to the way “Charles Ewert” concludes, with an absence of the vocals and the band locking into a layered groove. The band will loosen the leash to air things out—“Sara Hayden” plays with a shoegazy atmosphere—and then reign things back in with a memory of the trip: “Bo Diaz” taps into this dusky pensiveness underneath its Polar Bear Club veneer.
You Are Beneath Me is not going to turn everything you know on its head, but like pencil sketches of characters on a subway in a notebook, there’s an element of poignant realism, a three-dimensionality, a sort of real-time quirky understanding of everyday life that fuels the proceedings of this disc. Its narrowed scope drowns out the preeny self-indulgence this record could have been filled with and instead forces us to look at singular faces in the crowd. This isn’t revolution on wax (or hard drive), but it’s a solid post-punk/post-hardcore combination with enough pleasant surprises and skilled songwriting to make the half-hour run-time plenty rewarding.
--Jake Oliver
Comments
Fishers, Indiana
I want to like this more than I do, but those vocals irk me hard.
Top Albums: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 || Tumblr | Twitter
San Diego, CA
They definitely take some getting used to
Too old to bother, too young to give a shit.
Wollongong, New South Wales
yeah, i really want to like this, but only the first track i really like. which is weird since its an intro, but i just cant get into his voice yet.
Portland, OR
I can see why the vocals turn some folks off, but I could see myself getting some enjoyment out of this. The "poignant realism" aspect you mentioned definitely makes the songs more interesting.
Minnesota
Man, those vocals totally kill it for me. I can't listen to these guys with such grating vocals. Eesh.
Find me EVERYWHERE:
Fishers, Indiana
I did totally dig that intro track though.
Top Albums: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 || Tumblr | Twitter